The handwriting is on the wall; end of cursive for lawyers? Not write away

A handwritten, two-page note arrived by mail a week ago and I was enchanted. It is so rare that anyone, let alone a general counsel, takes the time to write someone by resolutely non-digital pen. Charmed and uplifted by the personal touch, my mind wandered.

Nowadays, most in-house counsel hand draft very little of their work product. Keyboards rule. This despite the prevalent view that you write better prose if you take the time to handwrite it. A typing whizz, I doubt that old saw, for I can pause as long as I want to formulate a phrase or search for a word, and then bid my fingers fly on. (Please, no snide comments about how my output puts paid to my claim.)

I recollected apocryphal stories, one hopes, about general counsel who have all their emails printed. They then handwrite replies, which a secretary dutifully transcribes in the reply email. Beyond quaint. But, Rees, not everyone can touch type comfortably and quickly

The notoriously difficult handwriting, crabbed and sloppy, idiosyncratic and abbreviated, that many busy people degenerate to still suffices to get the point across. It works for them and their executive assistants cope.

As a consultant who mostly takes notes on my laptop but sometimes scribbles them out, I still relish the ease and design creativity of written note-taking.

My final reverie brought back the hoary belief that penmanship tells something about the penner. Right up there with phrenology.